


10 Things I Love About You

by lavellanpls



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 10:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8140219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavellanpls/pseuds/lavellanpls
Summary: These are the moments Solas treasures most.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _"I hate the way you're always right  
>  I hate it when you lie  
> I hate it when you make me laugh  
> Even worse when you make me cry_
> 
> _I hate the way you're not around  
>  And the fact that you didn't call  
> But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you  
> Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all."_

 

Solas counted his evenings with Lavellan among the best he’d ever had. Not because they were _intimate_ —although he would admit those nights together were an enjoyable bonus—but because they were…simple. Lilith was a storm sealed within a body, a thing of beauty and terror, and beside her Solas felt like the slow-spreading chill of an awful winter. Someday their disasters would meet, and the magnitude would be devastating. They would end in catastrophe—cold and loud and violent—and Solas knew that. Found it hard to stop thinking about, at times.

Evenings, though, were such blissful reprieve.  

At night Lilith liked to lean against him in bed and read. He’d be midway through some dense tome on arcane magic, and she would curl up with her head against his shoulder and re-read one of the dog-eared books she nicked from the library. Fantastic tales and adventures, mostly, but there were a few books on dragons she still refused to give back. She was always most delighted when she could get her hands on the books Cassandra was most ashamed of reading.

Occasionally she’d read aloud passages that particularly tickled her, recited dramatically like a grand soliloquy, and Solas would chime in with some dry comment or sarcastic remark that made her cackle. She’d break the silence to inform him of a word she found delightful (“ _Lugubrious._ What a fabulous way to say ‘sad,’ right?”) and Solas would announce a particularly interesting fact or glaring historical inaccuracy as he came across them (“Can you believe the Circle tries to take credit for the Knight-Enchanter discipline? The technique descends from elven Arcane Warriors, not the _Chantry,_ of all things.”).

But for the most part they just…read. Rested back against the wood-carved headboard, candles flickering bright, and shared warmth and silence with an ease that felt natural. It was quiet, and uncomplicated, and Solas always treasured those moments. When they were together without being present. Just…silently near.

He imagined he would miss these evenings terribly.

Lilith stirred beside him. She abandoned her book and shifted to sit back on her knees. “Hey. Do you know why I love you?”

Solas didn’t look up from his book. “Why?”

“No, I’m asking. Do you know?”

He gave an amused hum, but still didn’t bother looking up. “No.”

That…wasn’t the right answer, though. When Solas finally finished his page and glanced up he found Lilith looking at him with the saddest face he’d ever seen.

“Really?” she asked.

“Is this some manner of trick question?”

“No. Just a regular question.” She shuffled forward on her knees, and Solas felt pinned by the heartbreak in her stare. “Can you think back for a second?”

He did. Lilith had told him she loved him for a nonsense list of trivial reasons, with more tacked on near-daily. He remembered the list. He could not remember what was on it. “Something about pronunciation, if I recall.”

“That was one of them, yeah. But that’s…the only one you remember?”

Solas finally set down his book. The troubled tilt of Lavellan’s frown warned that he’d made a mistake somewhere in his answers. “The most I can recall off the top of my head. I realize there were several.”

“Think,” she prompted.

He sighed without meaning to. Solas felt far too tired for this. “I believe ‘shoulders’ was on the list. Possibly more than once.”

“Well obviously. One mention for each.”

“Half of them related to various body parts, if I remember correctly.”

“And the other half?”

He didn’t remember those as clearly, though.

“Think,” she pressed.

Solas did.

 _You’re such a fatalist,_ he remembered she once said. _It makes you way too easy to surprise._ He remembered she leaned up to kiss his cheek and laughed. _That’s why I love you._

 _You know you scrunch up your eyebrows when you read,_ she said.

_You talk with your hands when you’re angry._

_You have terrible posture when you paint._

_I swear, you argue just for the sake of argument._

Little observations, pointed out at random intervals. Offhand comments delivered with a wry little smirk.

 _You tense your jaw when you have something you want to say,_ she said.

_Your voice gets higher the more upset you are._

_You’ll turn anything into some grim existential debate._

_You’ll never admit when you’re wrong, will you?_

Solas remembered, yes. He…remembered a lot of things.

 _Sometimes you snort when you laugh,_ she said.

_You always have to have the last word._

_You lose yourself, sometimes._

_You stare off into space when things get too quiet and you’ve thought too much._

_You really lean hard on that ‘i’ when you say ‘minion.’ Did you know that?_

And he remembered, at the end of each:

 _I love it._ _Never change._

He sighed. “Most of them are not particularly positive qualities.”

“I didn’t say they were your most shining virtues. I said I loved them. I love you.” She moved to straddle his lap, his book officially lost. She settled atop him with arms draped loose over his shoulders. “Do you know why you love me?”

Yes. That was a list Solas knew very well.

“You ask questions.” His smile bled into a smirk. “And then you question all my answers.”

“Sometimes you give bad answers.”

“Yes. As you so graciously point out.”

She leaned in to kiss him, and it soothed like a warm summer breeze.

 _You are indomitable,_ he’d once said.

_You are passionate._

_You are kind._

_You are so much more than I ever thought you could be_.

“You cheat at cards,” he supplied. “And then vehemently deny it.”

“If you have no evidence, then you can’t prove anything. I’ll have you know I’m exceptional at cards.”

“You are,” he granted. “And you also cheat.” He pulled her near with his arms around her waist. “You kick in your sleep. _Twice_ you’ve punched.”

“I do. I’ll grant you that.”

“You tell _terrible_ jokes.”

“I think that’s a matter of opinion.”

He pushed on undeterred. “You’ll argue causes you don't even believe in purely to force people to debate you on them.”

“Definitely agree.”

“You are _infuriatingly_ stubborn.”

“Fair.”

“You evade topics you do not wish to talk about. You actively seek out conflict. You show flippant disregard for rules you do not personally agree with. You curse _far_ too often.” If allowed to Solas felt he could have gone on forever. An endless list of trivial little things. “…and I love you,” he finished. “I would never wish for you to change.”

“Such a charmer,” she teased. She climbed off his lap to settle back into place beside him, and picked her book up to silently crack open again. She curled up with her head against his shoulder and returned to reading.

Solas would never stop missing this.

“You want to hear a joke?” She nestled closer with a creeping grin. “So this guy who suffers from premature ejaculation comes out of _nowhere_ …”

“ _Lilith._ ”

“Oh, come on.” She kissed him, and Solas felt the spread of her smile pressed into his lips. “You know you love it.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> [ _"Min-i-ons!"_ ](https://youtu.be/zNVLaHP5Ukw?t=47s)


End file.
